11 Ways Technology Can Kill Your Relationship

I don't think it's just me when I say that there are so many ways to screw up a relationship now. It used to be fairly big things like standing someone up, cheating, being a big-time loser. Now I hear of people breaking up over of some of the most bizarre things like, "He followed his ex-girlfriend on Twitter but he still wasn't following me." I mean, maybe that isn't so bizarre. Maybe that's just the world we live in now. Technology is infused with so much meaning. And there are so many ways to misread things! Or to read them correctly. Who the hell knows. At least there's a site that will interpret text messages for us.

But I do know that you can screw up your relationship big time by being careless about technology. Here are 11 things you want to avoid if you hope to keep your relationship going.

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Texting too much random crap. A friend of mine recently met a guy and gave him her number. He seemed like a cool dude. But within hours he was texting her non-stop random bullshit. "Hey, I'm having pizza right now." "Boy do I have a hankering for some ice cream." "I'm watching TV!" It was non-stop text message updates about his (admittedly pathetic) life. Not to mention it never occurred to him to text, "Would you like to go to dinner tomorrow night?" Laters, babbling textaholic.

Friending every single female you meet. I once dated a guy who, every single time he went out by himself or with his buddies, he ended up with 10 new female Facebook friends the next day. They were never male. I have no idea if he had an interest in any of them. But obviously he was giving out his first and last name (or getting theirs) to every woman he'd meet in a 20-mile radius on nights he was out. Doesn't exactly give a good mental picture of what goes on during nights when your man isn't with you.

Posting flirty stuff on female friends' walls and letting them do it to yours. Hellooooo ... that stuff is public. Every one of your friends -- including the one you're dating -- can see your flirty nonsense.

Google. There are quite a few ways that Google can throw a wrench into a relationship. One is by erasing your search history. Who does that? Someone with something to hide, that's who. But not doing it and then having your SO see that you Googled all of your exes and key words like "horny college girls" can also put you in the dog house. Use Google wisely.

Sending out weird tweets. There's nothing like accepting a date with a guy who seems nice and normal only to view his tweet log and realize that every single tweet is a hysterical ALL CAPPED message railing against the government or trying to get some celebrity's attention. On the other hand, this does serve as a good early red flag.

Obsessively monitoring your phone. No, you don't need to bring your phone into the bathroom. Or leave it next to you all night in bed. Or have it glued to the palm of your hand every second of every freaking day. You're either a phone addict or you're up to no good.

Refusing to have your status as "In a Relationship." I don't care what excuses someone comes up with, if you want his or her FB status to acknowledge your relationship and he/she refuses, there's a problem. The "I'm a private person" excuse is for the birds. A private person wouldn't be on FB to begin with.

Friending too early. Don't send out a friend request after one date. Or even two. Friending too soon smacks of someone with control issues. And it can be awkward when you don't want to keep dating a guy, but he's still on your friends list. Save becoming Facebook buddies for when you have your first child. Haha. Kidding. But at least wait a month or two.

Dating sites. If you're telling your partner you're not dating anyone else, then get the hell off the dating sites. Period. I don't care that some ghost came in the middle of the night and reactivated his profile without his knowledge. If he's on a dating site, for ANY reason, give him the boot.